College readiness is an issue

You may have seen the article on college readiness (or lack thereof) in a week ago Sunday’s Enquirer. The article states that nationally, 40% of college students are not prepared for college-level curriculum and are required to take remedial courses when entering college.

This is scary – isn’t it a high school’s job to prepare our students for the world beyond, whether they choose a 4-year college, a 2-year school, or heading to work?

The good news is these numbers do not reflect Milford’s results: according to the Ohio Regents College Readiness report, we fare very well in the percent of students attending Ohio colleges in some form or other, and those students’ needs for remedial help. To view our results compared to other area schools, click here.

One key in understanding this data is it is for Ohio colleges/universities only! We also have a number of students who go to school out of state, and their data is not included. This leaves out many more competitive schools our students are attending.
While we are doing well per the numbers, our district is also working to help make sure we are providing every support mechanism we can for our students. Here are just a few things Milford is doing to ensure our students are college-ready:

1) We have joined the National Student Clearinghouse which will provide this same type of data for students who matriculate at Ohio colleges and universities as well as out of state schools. This report will be ready in a few months.

2) We are one of the high schools in the High School-Higher Education Consortium, whosegoal is to reduce the remediation numbers. We already have brought together high school math and English teachers and college math and English teachers to begin the process of aligning curriculum for proper preparation.

3) Two years ago, we implemented the college readiness testing plan by having all 8th grade students take the EXPLORE test and 9th grade students take the PLAN test. Both tests provide incredibly valuable information to parents and students on coursework students need to take to achieve a certain ACT score.

4) This year, the high school taught an ACT preparation module as part of the College Readiness course. The before and after scores of students who took the course showed a 1 to 5 point increase in the ACT score.

In addition, as we continue to review curriculum and align with Core Standards, remediation needs will continue to decline.